Full Circle
by regnum
Summary: There’s white everywhere. White, and that pale shade of green that’s only found on the walls of hospitals and nursing homes. For a moment he doesn’t comprehend anything. He sees the IV, its translucent tube gleaming in the harsh light. [SORATO]


**Full Circle**

**Disclaimer:** For the last time, they aren't mine.

**A/N:** It really speaks for itself. It's kinda angsty, kinda sad, kinda out there. Maybe this style of writing only works in my head. Let me know. R&R please! Tip, listen to **3 Doors Down's Here Withosut You when you read. This was written for that song. **

**WARNING:** CHARACTER DEATH….you have been warned.

~*~

_The lights blur together, a haze of blue, red and gold. _

_Pain. Concrete, solid pain. It's like a brick wall slammed into his chest. _

_Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out…_

_The effort it takes is gargantuan. His eyelids slide shut and he's sinking, sinking into a sea of black._

_Voices. Sirens._

_Oh, God. Why can't they be quiet? All he wants is a little peace, a little quiet. _

"Can you hear me? Son, can you hear me?" __

_He wants to scream back, "Yes! Yes, dammit, I hear you!" but his mouth won't form the words. It's hard enough to breathe, let alone talk. The heaviness in his chest seems to increase._

_Rough fingers pry his eyelids open. Bright, intrusive light._

"He's still breathing."

"Get a mask on him."

"Strap him in, quick!"

_He can't hear them anymore. He can't hear anything. He's weightless, floating on a sea of black. He remembers something like this once. A long time ago._

_He tries to grasp the memory. Tries to remember. But it evades him, dances in and out of his grip. Teasing him. _

_Flashes of blue and yellow. Russet red hair. An unreserved smile. She looks at him, brown eyes sparkling. _

_Sora…_

_Oh, God. _

_He wants to scream._

~*~

He wakes up and doesn't remember anything. In the days and months to come he will wish that he could go back to that kind of innocence. 

There's white everywhere. White, and that pale shade of green that's only found on the walls of hospitals and nursing homes. For a moment he doesn't comprehend anything. He sees the IV, its translucent tube gleaming in the harsh light. 

His other arm is in a cast. It lies heavily by his side. 

_Accident? _

He closes his eyes and all he can hear is the screech of breaks and someone screaming. Arms tighten around his waist and then they're gone. 

He opens his eyes. 

His brother is sitting across the room. His head propped on his arm as he idly flicks through the magazine in front of him. There's a vase of flowers sitting on the table beside him. 

"'Keru?" 

His voice is creaky from lack of use and barely above a whisper. 

The head snaps up and blue eyes widen, "Nii-san?" 

~*~

They tell him he's been unconscious for two days. That he's lucky there was no serious brain damage, just a concussion and a nasty head wound. He's scraped up, his arm and a couple of ribs are broken and he needed twenty-eight stitches in his leg, but he'll live. 

They tell him all this and smile. 

His parents stand behind the doctor. Parents. Plural. It's the first time both his parents have been in the same room together since the divorce. His mother looks pale, there are dark rings under her eyes and she keeps wringing her hands. 

His father is unshaven, his hair uncombed. He stands there, hands in the pockets of his creased pants. His shirt is untucked. 

None of them tell him what he wants to know. What he _needs to know. Every time he tries to open his mouth to ask they tell him to save his strength. He wishes they would shut up. _

His brother knows the question that's on his mind. He can see it in his eyes. And he already knows the answer to the question. He sees it in the way Takeru refuses to look him in the eye for any decent amount of time. 

He feels sick to his stomach. 

He tells himself that maybe it isn't so bad. That maybe, just maybe, he's imagining things. That Takeru will look at him and smile when he asks the question. That he will tell him that everything is all right.

There's a hand on his unbroken arm. It's his mother's. Her fingers feel cold on his bare skin. She tells him that the police are outside and they'd like to talk to him.

The sick feeling grows.

He knows that it's all his fault. 

~*~

"Ishida Yamato?"

He nods. 

The policeman stands in the middle of the room. His uniform seems to stand out against the pale walls. He's not smiling.

"I am Officer Takada, my partner is Officer Yamaguchi." 

He nods again.

Officer Yamaguchi looks younger, friendlier. He holds his hat in his hands and offers a brief smile.

"Do you remember what you were doing on the night of the accident?" 

Of course he remembers. He'd finally made enough money to buy his bike and he couldn't wait to show it off. 

He promised to take Sora out that night. He remembers tossing her a helmet, smiling as she fitted it over her shiny hair and tightened the strap. 

He remembers her arms around his waist and her laughter sounding in his ear. 

The officers don't want to know all this. "How fast were you going, Mr. Ishida?" 

How fast? Too fast. He'd definitely been above the speed limit. He knows because she'd warned him. Given him that little disapproving look that he found really cute. So, just to rile her up he'd gone a little faster, just a little, not much.

He hadn't been able to take the corner though. He remembers losing control of the bike, feeling the wheels skid and slid across the road. He hears Sora scream as her grip around his waist is ripped away…

The shuffling of paper brings him back to reality. 

"Mr. Ishida," this time it's Officer Yamaguchi that speaks, "The police report estimates that you were going anywhere between 120 and 150 kilometres per hour. Can you verify this?" 

Numb, he shakes his head. 

"Do you have any idea, a guess even, at what your speed might have been?" 

He swallows, "I-I don't know. Maybe a 130, 140?" 

His head hurts. 

"And your passenger? How was she connected to you?" The officer's eyes are sympathetic, kindly even. 

"My-my girlfriend." 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Ishida." 

~*~

It's late at night, but he is still here, still sitting in that same chair, still reading his magazine. His mother tried to get him to leave, but he just won't go. 

Yamato hasn't said a word since the police were here. 

"'Keru?" 

He looks up, "Do you want something, nii-san?" He closes the magazine quietly. It hurts to see his brother like this. So withdrawn, so full of hurt. 

"How?" 

It's a single syllable question, but he doesn't want to answer it. Answering it makes it all the more real. It means that it's irreversible. 

Yamato clears his throat, "What happened, Takeru?" 

"Dad called on Saturday night, it was about eleven thirty I think," he speaks in a monotone, afraid to allow an emotion to enter his voice, "The police had called him."

Yamato doesn't say anything; he doesn't even make eye contact, just sits there, staring at his hands. 

"We got to the hospital just before you were being wheeled in," he closes his eyes for a moment, that scene is still far too vivid in his memory. 

He can still hear the crash as the doors to the A and E fly open. He can see the limp form under the sheet. He sees the blood, it seems to stain everything. Even the hands of the paramedic. 

His mother is clinging to him. His father sits on the hard plastic seat and smokes. He's been smoking since he got the call. 

There are people shouting in loud voices. Doctors in their white coats rush past. Nurses with their clipboards, hastily writing down information. It's so noisy. 

"Two fractured ribs and badly fractured left femur. Facial lacerations. Concussion. Possible internal bleeding."

"Has she responded to stimulus?"

"That's a negative."

"She's lost too much blood."

"Get her to OR quickly!" 

"Dr. Mizumi report to OR please."

They wheel another gurney in. It's his brother. He doesn't know how he knows this, he just does. Again they trundle past, shouting.

"His left arm is fractured. Possible concussion. He got off lightly from the looks of it." 

"Right, well, get him to surgery! Just down the hall."

The nurse smiles at the body on the bed, "You'll be just fine, son." 

That gives him hope. It means that his brother is awake, that he'll get out of it okay. His mother is crying. 

"Sora?"

Yamato's voice brings him back to reality. It is worn, laced with despair. He doesn't want to tell him what happened. He doesn't want to make that pain real for his brother. 

"She…she'd lost too much blood in the accident. They operated, but there wasn't really anything they could do. There was internal bleeding, and-" He can't go on. He sees the tears streaming down his brother's face.

~*~

_"So, you finally went out and bought it, huh?"_

_"Yeah," he grins at her, looking like a happy kid, excited and proud at the same time, "So m'lady, would you like to go for a ride?" He tosses her a helmet. _

_She catches it, tucks it under her arm and performs an awkward curtsey, "I'd be honoured, good knight."_

~*~

_"Yamato…you're going too fast!" She has to shout to be heard over the sound of the engine. The wind whipping past grabs the words from her mouth._

_He grins, feeling her arms tighten around his body. _

_"You ain't seen nothing yet, baby!" _

_He revs the engine, and she laughs. "Be careful, Yamato!"_

~*~

_How fast were you going, Mr. Ishida?_

I don't know.

_Do you have any idea, a guess, even as to what your speed might have been?_

I-I don't know…

_Yamato…you're going too fast!_

I-I…

_Yamato…_

I'm sorry…oh God, I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry…

_She'd lost too much blood…_

No. No. No. This can't be happening…

_It's going to be all right, nii-san._

Oh, God…

_I'm sorry, Mr. Ishida._

~*~

He wakes up in a cold sweat. It seems there is no peace, not even in dreams. She's right there in his dream. He can see her. She's near enough that he could reach out and touch her if he wanted to. But every time he tries she moves away. 

She's calling him, reaching out her hand, but he can't get to her in time. No matter how hard he tries, he'll never reach her in time. 

Then he's all alone in the dark. All alone, except for the scream. It's a sound he'll never forget. It chills him to his bones. 

But even that fades away, leaving him with nothing but silence. 

It's been two weeks. Every night of those two weeks he's had the same dream. Every night he hears her voice. Every night he relives the accident. 

The doctors prescribed medication to help him sleep. It doesn't help much. It doesn't help at all. He's on medication for pain as well. It works on everything but the pain in his heart. It does nothing to close up the huge, aching void inside. 

He's going home today. They made it sound like it was some big, exciting occasion. It's not really. He's going home to nothing. His mother tells him that his friends wanted to come today, that they wanted to be here with him as he went home. 

He's already told them that he doesn't want to see them. He hasn't seen anyone since the accident, only his family. He'd like to keep it that way. 

He wasn't even able to go to the funeral. The doctors wouldn't let him. Even if they had, he didn't know if he'd be able to face her family. Not yet. Takeru tells him that the funeral was moving. He doesn't want to hear it. It just makes the loss all the more real. 

The doctors are smiling. They say that the cast will be off in a couple of weeks and that his ribs are healing nicely. He'll have to come back weekly for check-ups, but other than that he'll be fine. He's free to go.

They make it sound like he's leaving prison.

~*~

Home hasn't changed, not really. His room is exactly where he left it. The photo of the two of them sits on his desk. She looks so happy there. He's never going to see that smile again. 

He can hear the cars going by outside. It's noisy here. Not like the hospital. His father raps on the door, pokes his head in and reminds him to take his medication before going to sleep. 

Oh yeah. He'd forgotten about that.

~*~

The face reflected back to him isn't his own. He peels the bandage off his forehead. The stitches look dark, painful. Gingerly he runs his finger over them. The doctors said it wouldn't scar, but he doesn't care anymore. 

The two pill bottles sit on the sink. 

_I'm so sorry, baby…_

~*~

It's the same thing all over again. Only this time he understands why. His father, again in that chair, again smoking. His mother, the silent tears falling down her face. 

_Why are you doing this to us, Yamato? Haven't we been through enough?_

He knows the answer. His brother doesn't know what else to do. There's no where else to go but inside. He just feels so helpless. He's watching his brother self-destruct and he can't do anything to stop it. 

His hands are shaking. 

~*~

This time it was his father who found him. His father who called the paramedics. He doesn't remember much, just a blur of faces.

They're standing there and telling him that he shouldn't be alive. 

_No kidding. Why do you think I did it?_

His mother has that reproachful look on her face. It alternates with despair. His father's been chain smoking for the last day now. Takeru won't even look at him. 

He wants to say something, but there's nothing he can say. "I'm sorry" won't cut it this time. Surely they understand. They have to. 

It's just too hard to face each day. It's too hard to wake up and know that she's not there. That she'll never be there and it's all his fault. The guilt is eating him alive. There are too many variables, too many "if only"s.

_If only I hadn't been such an idiot_

_If only I'd slowed down when she'd told me too_

_If only I hadn't bought the bike_

_If only…_

_If only…_

They were with him constantly. They drummed away at the inside of his head. Berating him. Cursing him. Mocking him. 

~*~

_It's been too long. It's been way too long, baby…_

He hadn't wanted to come. Takeru insisted. He'd said that it would be healing. That it would help. He'd do anything if it would help. 

So here he was. Standing in front of a polished headstone that bears her name. There's nothing else there that's would indicate that it would have anything to do with her. Just her name, birth date and the symbol of her crest engraved into the stone. 

If he closes his eyes he can still see her. In his mind, she's smiling. 

"I'm sorry…"

He's said those words a thousand times since that day. But it's the first time he's said them here. Takeru's right, there's something healing about that. He's tried everything else. The pills had only been the beginning. His wrists bear the scars of his efforts. But someone out there doesn't want him to succeed. He's been in and out of hospital more times than he cares to recall. They had him on suicide watch for awhile there. 

"Baby, if I could just take back that day you know I would. I would give anything to have you here right now." A single tear falls down his cheek. "I really don't want to go on. But I'm just thinking of what you'd say if you could see me now."

A smile crosses his lips.

"I think you'd yell. You'd tell me that I was being soft. That I need to go on living." 

It fades away as quickly as it appears.

"Trouble is, I don't want to go on living without you…I don't think I can." 

He sits on the grass, tracing a finger over the engraving, "But I'll do it for you, babe." 

_I love you…_

~*~

**A/N: **Love it? Hate it? REVIEW IT!

© 2003-10-31

Abi


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